Dagger
by redwallanderson
Summary: A pitbull's last fight.
1. Chapter 1

He was wounded but still alive. His filthy pelt was covered in unimaginable gore, and there were over a dozen gashes, the worst of them the severed toe on his right forepaw. The twolegs were banging and yelling as usual, sipping their strange bitter-tasting liquid from the vessels they held and waving strange pieces of papery fabric around. The pitbull made a limping turn towards his opponent, knowing that if he did not win this battle, his twoleg master would be very angry and would beat him in vengeance for the loss of so much of the the master's papery fabric.

His opponet stepped back a pace or two in preparation for the pitbull's final charge. The opponent was a pitbull as well but not as large, not as fierce and not as experienced. The fight was certain to end in the favor of the pitbull with the severed toe, who had been christened Dagger by his twoleg master.

Dagger made the first lunge and grunted as his opponent's teeth slammed into his jaw, the wide mouth snapping and locking shut in a death grip. Ignoring the blood flowing from his mouth and the pain emanating from his jaw, Dagger placed both forepaws against his opponent's underbelly and began to push hard, steadily shoving the other pitbull backwards. A roar of cheers emanated from the watching twolegs as the pitbull was forced up against the unyieldingly solid wall, trapped in a corner.

But to his credit, even though he was on the verge of panic and had already been wounded in the stomach badly by Dagger's fangs in a previous clash before the final charge, the opponent did not attempt to surrender or escape. He had been forced to fight by the twolegs enough that he knew that it was fruitless. The fights were to the death. His eyes bulging, the pitbull thrashed violently, trying to wriggle out of the corner. He did not release his mouth from Dagger's jaws.

Dagger knew he had to finish the fight quickly. He dug his forepaws into the other pitbull's abdominal wound and ripped it steadily farther open, blood leaking out and staining his paws bright red. His body quivering violently, the opponent fell back against the wall and let go of his death grip. Dagger took the oppurtunity instantly, biting deeply into the side of the pitbull's neck and then pulling hard to the left, snapping his neck viciously.

Letting the convulsing body fall to the bloody floor, Dagger turned away and limped painfully and wearily to the center of the floor. His master stepped forward and took a large stack of the papery fabric from an angry-looking twoleg and then walked over to Dagger, petting the blood-matted fur on his head and scratching him behind the ears.

The master turned and whispered to another twoleg and handed him a considerable amount of the papery fabric and whispered in the other twoleg's ear, "Take care of this. He nearly lost. I can't afford a loss right now. You know what to do with him."

The twoleg hesitated, then nodded sadly and gently gripped Dagger by the collar and led him towards the door to leave. Dagger wearily hoped he was heading somewhere to rest....


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

A huge ball of flame engulfed the cabin as the flare went off and everything was confusion for a few long moments. The other divers ran inside to see what was going on, but the cabin was filled with smoke and turmoil and a strange moaning and flailing shapes and they all collided and tripped over one another.

James, the diver who had made it back to the surface, strained to see through the smoke, and then wished he hadn't. He saw the zombie-thing bent over the body of Jenny, devouring her ample hips as she writhed and tried to get away. Somehow, the chain had been severed, and even though the zombie was burning, it was still eating Jenny. The captain was bleeding like a stuck pig and screaming like a little school girl while he tried to reload the flare gun. James knew that it would take too long, so he stepped forward towards the zombie. It was the only thing he could do.

He kicked the zombie in the stomach and it rolled off of Jenny, but then it just got up and leaped into James, knocking him sprawling and screaming as burning flesh peeled off of the zombie and melted onto James' skin, burning him as well and leaving horrendous marks. That was the least of his worries, however, James knew, as the zombie hissed ferociously and bit him on the bicep.

"Get this fucker off of me!" James shrieked at the others divers and at the captain.

Frederick, another diver, ran forward and dealt a sudden, vicious kick to the zombie's face and it rolled off, a flap of skin separating from its decaying cheek, but that just turned its attention to Frederick and it lunged at him, mouth opened wide to take another bite.

But before it could reach Frederick, it was blasted in the face by another flare fired by the captain, who had managed to finally reload. The zombie was blown backwards, headless, and lay finally still upon the gore-drenched floor of the cabin.

The one other diver left besides Frederick and James was a young man who went by the name Eddie. He was standing at the door of the cabin staring in wordlessly at the bloody scene.

"That was fucking brutal," he whispered, and everybody nodded silently, panting hard.

-----

James sat on the railing of the ship, staring at his bandaged arm, which oozed blood still through the gauze. Frederick and Eddie were nearby quietly zipping the body of Jenny into a body bag. The captain was standing beside them, looking down suspiciously at Jenny's dead, blood-spattered face. His hand was bandaged as well.

"How do we know she's not gonna come back as one of those things?" he whispered, clutching the flare gun as if it were a life-line. Maybe it was, for him, anyways.

"She's fucking dead," Frederick answered broken-heartedly. James wasn't surprised; he knew that Frederick and Jenny had gone to school together for years and were very good friends and rumored 'friends with benefits'. Frederick dissolved into tears and sat down with his face in his hands.

The captain blinked, taken aback. "Just asking," he mumbled, turning his slightly bloodshot eyes away from the embarassing scene. "This is some real serious shit."

James fixed the captain with a cold stare. "I'm not going back down there to that fucking ship and neither is anyone else. If you wanna do your little research and get ripped to pieces, than go do it yourself. Do you understand? We don't get paid enough for this fucking bullshit."

The captain snorted. "You're overpaid, you little shit." He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "Listen, this is big . . . We . . . we gotta do this shit, guys, because we could be fucking millionaires and . . . " He blinked, dabbing at some blood leaking out of his nose. "Hmm, nosebleed . . . That's strange." He looked over at James and blinked. "Your nose is bleeding, too . . . "

James dabbed at his own nose and saw that his captain's words were true and his eyes widened. "Now we are fucked," he whispered. He didn't know why he felt that way . . . but he did. They were all fucked now.


End file.
